


Off in the Stars

by cunzy4



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ambiguous Apocalypse, Angst, Crowley and Aziraphale are platonic, Crowley is lonely and regrets his life choices, Crowley messed up bad, Gen, Regret, What else is new, introspective, wink - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22542472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cunzy4/pseuds/cunzy4
Summary: Crowley went through with his threat to run away, and now he has all the time in the world to regret running away.Too bad there's not an Earth to go back to.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Off in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This idea was stuck in my brain, so I proceeded to ignore the backlog of other fics in progress (and my actual writing job) to knock it out in an hour or two. Enjoy!

It was cold.

Deep, bone-chilling, intense cold that would have killed Crowley in a millisecond had he been human. This tiny, barren planet orbiting Alpha Centauri barely received any heat from its distant sun. Hardly his first choice for a new home, but his options had been limited. One rock pile was about as good as the next one.

For a cold-blooded creature like Crowley, his strongest instinct was to stop moving and conserve energy until he warmed up. But his surroundings would never warm up. And Crowley was right in the middle of an almighty Sulk. He couldn’t have a proper Sulk while hibernating.

So he paced back and forth with his hands jammed in his pockets, angrily kicking at rocks and grumbling under his breath.

“Stupid angel,” he muttered. “Stupid humans. Stupid everyone. Don’t know why I ever bothered. I should’ve buggered off that planet centuries ago. God knows-“ he spat as the name burned his mouth. “ _Someone_ knows why I even hung around…”

With an angry growl, he collapsed where he stood and lay on his back, staring up at the frankly breathtaking expanse of stars and planets and galaxies. Without Earth’s light pollution, which had admittedly not been one of his better ideas, he fancied he could see the entire universe from where he lay.

These beautiful stars. _His_ stars, his most cherished creations, were all that was left to keep him company.

They weren’t enough.

He lay there for a few hours, watching the stars while counting how much time he spent _not_ thinking about Aziraphale, as promised. So far he was up to 4.5 seconds, a new record.

Except, of course, Crowley had been thinking about him that entire time. 

He restarted his mental timer and continued to not think about his fussy idiot of an angel, who was apparently not even his _friend_ after all this time, and what he might be doing right now. Left behind on an Earth teetering on the brink of an Apocalypse. Alone.

Crowley leaped to his feet and resumed his furious pacing. “Why couldn’t that bloody idiot have just listened to reason and come with me, instead of waiting around to get himself killed like a _monumentally stupid prat!_ ” He screamed the last words to the uncaring heavens, his voice sounding flat and dead without a trace of echo.

Even though he’d offered, _twice,_ and even apologized (which was a punishable offense Downstairs), the foolish _brave, braver than me_ angel had stayed behind to either save the inhabitants of Earth or die alongside them. What an absolute buffoon, even to the very end.

 _Of course,_ said a treacherous voice in his mind, _you were the one who convinced him to try to help in the first place. You wanted to save Earth first. It’s your fault he’s in trouble now._

“Oh, shut up,” he snarled out loud.

 _You’d better get used to it,_ the voice snarked back. _I’m the only one you have left to talk to._

But he knew it was true. It was his own fault. He’d dragged Aziraphale into his schemes and plans because he knew the angel would agree to it in the end, he always did, and then abandoned him mere hours before the end. Now, whatever his fate was, he would face it alone.

And Crowley would never see him again.

“Good,” he muttered. “Never liked that guy anyway. Far too uppity.”

 _Oh yes you do_ , the voice scoffed. _If you didn’t, you would have just left without offering to take him with you. You don’t want to see him die any more than he does._

“Well, I can’t talk to you if you’re going to be so _rational_ about this,” he snapped.

He sat heavily on one of the rocks that littered the landscape, wishing he could conjure up enough alcohol to keep himself completely wasted for the rest of eternity. Being drunk and cranky was always better than being sober and cranky.

But that would be no fun without Aziraphale. The angel was _hilarious_ when he was drunk.

The cold seeped into his bones, mostly ignored until he started thinking about it. He shivered and rubbed his arms pointlessly, contemplating lying down for a nice long nap. He always slept when he was angry. After a particularly traumatic event in human history, or an argument with a certain obnoxious angel, Crowley would work himself into a good snit and then sleep off his rage for a few decades. 

Aziraphale always seemed happy to see him after an extended absence, asking after his health as though they weren’t supposed to be mortal enemies. Angels and their damn _manners_.

 _He’s_ always _nice to you_ , the voice pointed out helpfully. _Always. And what did you do in return?_

He’d cut and run. He’d abandoned Earth and its many enjoyable activities, he’d abandoned his job which he frankly hadn’t taken seriously in thousands of years… he’d abandoned Aziraphale.

His only friend. The only creature, angel or otherwise, who had ever shown him any sort of kindness. Who hadn’t judged Crowley the way all angels judged his kind, never shown him contempt or acted superior and always forgave him after a fight even when Crowley had been acting like an absolute jackass.

 _I forgive you._ Those were the last words Aziraphale would ever say to him. He’d never heard those words from anyone else in all of Creation, least of all his Creator, who had sentenced him to become what he was now for the simple crime of wanting to _know_ things. And he would never get a chance to thank him, to tell him how much he appreciated him.

He couldn’t go back. Earth was probably destroyed by now, and Aziraphale along with it. Crowley would never know if he could have averted Earth’s fate by staying behind, saved the angel and everyone else, or if the planet had been doomed either way. Earth was most likely a smoldering crater, but it wasn’t like Crowley was going back to check. Even if by some grand miracle humanity had survived, Aziraphale was hardly going to welcome him with open arms after he’d run away like this and saved his own skin.

The scorn and anger- or worse, the _disappointment-_ in the angel’s eyes would be worse than any injury his physical body could have sustained. The pain of knowing he’d let his angel down would be nearly on par with the agony of Falling. So he would stay away, like the coward he was. Stay away and pretend that none of it mattered to him anymore.

Somehow, Aziraphale had always expected the best from Crowley. And Crowley, sentimental idiot that he was, always tried to deliver. When exactly had he come to care so much about what a bloody _angel_ thought of him?

It was too late now. After all his second chances, it was finally too late to fix his mistakes. And this mistake, he knew before he’d even left Earth, was the worst mistake in an immortal lifetime crammed full of horrific mistakes. All he could do now was hope against hope that the angel, at least, had survived when the Earth did not, however unlikely that was. And if he was still alive on the Celestial plane, perhaps he would sometimes look back on his time with his former friend with something less than disgust and disappointment. Maybe, sometimes, he would allow himself to remember Crowley with a smile.

That was all he had left to hope for.


End file.
